COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Stanley]

But how many people will take any notice? So many think that their demands on the system make so little difference it doesn't matter That's why action against global warming has failed.....

[Whyperion]

As it's AI I thought this thread might be the best place for it. Its a terrible squandering of energy...
`Everyone's jumping on the AI doll trend - but what are the concerns?' BBC
When scrolling through social media, you may have recently seen friends and family appearing in miniature. It's part of a new trend where people use generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT and Copilot to re-package themselves - literally - as pocket-sized dolls and action figures. It has taken off online, with brands and influencers dabbling in creating their mini-me. But some are urging people to steer clear of the seemingly innocent trend, saying fear of missing out shouldn't override concerns about AI's energy and data use.

There is also a trend of taking "still"pictures and animating them To me IF the energy is from renewables (solar specifically) and the waste heat can be put to community heating projects then actually it is less of a climate chaging issue.

[Stanley]

We had a saying when I was a lad.... "When Ifs and Ands are pots and pans there'll be no need for tinkers!"

[Whyperion]

It seems put your datacentre in scotland - with better power interconnect to England needed too
"frequent situations where there is ample wind power in Scotland but no capacity to send it south, where electricity demand is highest. This forces grid operators to fire up gas plants that are closer to cities instead" - so wind is being paid not to generate and gas being paid to generate , which is ridiculous.

[Stanley]

Another 80mb of updates seamlessly delivered by Canonical. It never fails to amaze me that this service is free to ordinary users.......

[Big Kev]

My TalkTalk Fibre 65 contract expires in 26 days. I had the option to let it continue, with an increase to £34, or renew for another 24 months starting at £28. This increases by £3 each year, I chose to renew. There's no option for 'full fibre' here yet.

[Stanley]

My full fibre unlimited has recently gone up to £40. My attitude is better the devil you know.....

[Tripps]

Whe you look at a new topic on Youtube - it soon sends you several similar or related ones. This is sometimes a good thing, and can lead to interesting viewing.

Is there any way to prevent it directing you to sites you have no interest in, and would rather avoid?

I have had as much as I can take of Brian Clough, and Italian gangsters murdering each other. . . .

[Tizer]

We all know AI bots are not always accurate but it's causing more problems now because people are using AI to tell them whether news images are genuine or not. California Governor Gavin Newsom posted two images on Monday, which he said showed the National Guard troops sent to LA were "being forced to sleep on the floor, piled on top of one another”. People using ChatGPT or Grok (another AI) were told by the bots that the images were of other locations years ago. But BBC Verify found that the two images were first published by the San Francisco Chronicle, on Monday. The paper said it had exclusively obtained the images, which it said showed National Guard troops sleeping on the floor of “one or more” of the federal buildings in Los Angeles that they'd been sent by the Trump administration to protect. BBC Verify also ran a reverse image search on both photos and found no copy of them online before 9 June. So, AI is now spreading its own misinformation! BBC

[Tripps]

As Inspector Morse famously once said - "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

and Tizer wisely said "Nullius in verba": On the word of no one (Motto of the Royal Society).

and finally - TRIPPS said "Believe nothing you read , and only half of what you see.

[Stanley]

I was always taught that the most trustworthy sources of information are advertisements and the Hatched Matched and Dispatched lists.
I have my own small computer niggle this morning. When I went to send my usual morning email to my kids world-wide I got an error message saying my security certificate was wrong and needed attending to. I don't know what I did but after the third try it went away and the mail was sent. I have sent another email since and that was OK. I looked it up on Google and found a complicated hash of computer speak that got me nowhere. Has anyone got any experience of this problem?
David.... Re your question about getting Youtube to re-configure its choices for you. When that has happened to me I have gone into the settings for my membership and deleted my history. That seems to clear its head and you get a fresh start where it takes notice of what you actually watch.

[Tizer]

Has anyone got any experience of this problem?

Not me, I've never encountered it.

By the way, I see there are stories in the press saying BT is hoping to take over Talktalk.

[Stanley]

All seems to be quiet on the email front.

[Stanley]

You can tell ikt's Friday the 13th! This morning it's Whatsapp which is playing silly buggers. Something funny about the whole affair because it doesn't recognise my phone number in the login process. That's strange because your phone number is the whole basis of your membership and the app is working on my phone but not on the computer. I shall ignore it and leave it to heal up!

[Stanley]

I'm happy to report that when I revisited Whatsapp on my desktop at logging off time I found that it had healed up during the day and could be loaded. I have no idea what the problem was and am not interested in finding out. I am just grateful that it is functioning perfectly now!

[Stanley]

All is running smoothly.... I keep my fingers crossed and soldier on!

[Cathy]

I’ve tried again to post on Are You Being Served
It won’t load my Draft and the Submit button doesn’t appear.

IMG_1212.png

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Also I had typed more but it wasn’t Saved

[PanBiker]

Very strange Cathy. Can you try a different browser?

[Tizer]

Stanley, Ubuntu version 20.04, which you and I are using, has now ended its support updates and you need to upgrade to v.22.04. I've done mine this morning using exactly the same steps we used for upgrading 18.04 to 20.04. You probably still have the document I sent you last time detailing how to do it. Don't forget to back up all your data first in case anything goes wrong. (If you want another copy of that document let me know.)

The only difference I encountered was part way through the process a notice came up saying Firefox can now only be installed from the snap store. No problem - just click OK and it does the installation for you then carries on with the other files. I found 22.04 little different from our present version which is comforting! Some icons were missing from the L.H. bar, such as Gimp and gThumb, but you can just click on the software icon to get a listing of applications and install whichever you want.

I saw that 24.04 also was available as an LTS (Long Term Support) version and decided to go for it. You can't go directly from 20 to 24 in one step, you have to install 22 then upgrade that to 24 in the same way. I did it and I'm now in 24.04 writing this message. I got the snap store message again for Firefox and gave the OK. Later it stopped with a similar message for Thunderbird. I gave it OK but it then said it couldn't access all the snap files for that application. I told it to abort the attempt and it then carried on with the installation. When it finished I found everything seems to work OK, including Firefox and Thunderbird. It still showed a warning about Thunderbird but I closed it and carried on and haven't had any further trouble. The appearance is more different in 24.04 but mainly it's just that, and not function. I couldn't find my previous scanner application, it's not offered now, but I was pleased to see that there is a very simple but useful scanner application in the software repository with a very simple name, Document Scanner!

The only remaining nuisance is that each time the Software Update window pops up it wants me to install 3 Thunderbird language files but when I click Install it can't find them. It'll probably resolve itself in time. Probably the best approach for you at present is to do the 22.04 install only. That will give you another 2 years.

[PanBiker]

I’ve tried again to post on Are You Being Served
It won’t load my Draft and the Submit button doesn’t appear.
IMG_1212.png
.
Also I had typed more but it wasn’t Saved

Have you had any joy with a different browser, (if you can) Cathy.

I tried for functionality in the Practice posting section. Made a post, saved it as a draft so it initially didn't register as a new post. Opened a new post in the thread and loaded the draft OK. It gave me the options to save as a draft again or to submit, the latter successful, so cant find anything wrong.

I have already checked that it is not a permission issue on your account so I am a bit vexed with this one Cathy.

[Stanley]

Please send the document again Peter.... You know I need my hand holding!

[Tizer]

I've just sent it to you by email. I changed 20.04 to 22.04, otherwise the process is the same as last time.

[Stanley]

I've printed the sheet Peter but will almost certainly wait until, I have you on the other end of the telephone line to hold my hand. Have a good break!